By Jillian Kule
Did you ever wonder why birds fly so high, except when they fly across a street? Stupid kamikaze birds.
Archive for March, 2009
Deep Thought for the Day
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Thank you sir, may I have another?
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
By Dave Riley
Fraternities have a unique way of making you a man. Successfully, completing the action of initiation gives students the right of passage that ultimately grants them permission to talk to other sorority chicks without getting their asses kicked. We saw the process, and to some degree, felt it in Animal House. Wack. Ouch. We laughed at the boys from Old School with their scare tactics involving cinder blocks and rope. That was too painful to watch.
In the graphic design field, we have our own initiation. It usually happens in our first year of training at a studio. The majority of the designers out there have experienced it. It’s a result of trying to impress the boss with your speed of mocking a brochure or perhaps the lack of dexterity in one’s finger muscles. Whatever the Padawan’s excuse may be, you’ll be certain to find on every designer’s hand the scars from a rogue X-Acto knife. They are worn as a badges of honor and hurt a lot more than anything a fraternity can deliver. I remember my first very well, like we remember the historic hit delivered by Campbell in the 2006 playoffs—or maybe Umberger doesn’t remember:
I haven’t cut myself since; but if I do, it will eternally be my secret for fear of my peers thinking the Riley is losing his game. Not a chance.
Share your initiation stories. Are they as painful?
2009 ADDY Awards: The greatest award show in the history of mankind.
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
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By Joe Sweeney
All of you loyal readers of The Martin Group blog have probably been wondering why there have been very few posts these last few weeks. Speculation must be running rampant – Did they go on a crystal meth and Pop Rocks bender? Did they find Scientology? Did they see the new Airport Plaza Jewelers commercials with the rubber chicken and retire, knowing they could never create something so ingenious?
The answer, dear friends, is even crazier – we were busy crafting all the creative for the 2009 ADDY Awards. That’s right, the yearly event where people in the WNY ad community pat each other on the back and pass around Lucite trophies, in the hopes of convincing themselves that they’ve contributed something worthwhile to this miserable, pockmarked rock that we call the world. (We wanted that to be the official vision statement of the awards, but the American Advertising Federation preferred something about representing the “true spirit of creative excellence” or something.)
The show was held last Friday at the Hyatt in downtown Buffalo, and I daresay that it went pretty darn well. Our theme for the night – “An ego-friendly event” – gave Jillian and I the freedom to create all sorts of jerky, arrogant communications. Greg had a field day pasting the room with beautiful, bloated head illustrations. Lisa ran around like a Red Bull-fueled rabbit, making sure everything was just so. And we blasted songs like “Mama Said Knock You Out” as everybody got nice and schnockered before the proceedings began. Plus, the video you see here kicked off the evening – if you just ate before watching it, I do apologize.
On top of the people I already mentioned, props go to the following folks for making sure we didn’t lose our minds (If I forgot anybody, well, we’re all big boys and girls.):
Jen, without whom nothing would have happened at all
James, for designing those wacky thought bubbles
Dan, for the table tents and a hundred other things
Jeremy, for the wondrous showbook
Dion, for the original thought that got us all going
Tod, for being tan throughout the whole process
Tricia and Charlie for putting out fires and answering stupid questions
Scott and all at United Graphics
Jamie and all at PrintLeader
Andy, Bill and Carl at Daily Post
Jim and Brian, the other culprits in the “Ghost” video
Dylan for all the picture-takin’
Len, Lisa and The Voice Squad for the announcing and brown-nosing
Warren for all the touching (and retouching)
The last few months have been trying, but at least we all donated our time for a good cause – muscular dystrophy.
P.S. I was just informed that not a penny of the proceeds went to muscular dystrophy. All of our time spent working on the ADDYs was to benefit the Advertising Club of Buffalo and our local ad community in general. Well, that’s good too, I guess.
Tropican’tsing.
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
By Jillian Kule
Has anyone heard the new Tropicana Orange Juice commercial? The one with the horrible song where it sounds like the woman is getting strangled as she tries to sing?
If you’ve heard it, you’d know. While getting ready for work one morning with the television on, I immediately turned around to see if someone was getting murdered in my house.
After a little bit of research, I found out the woman is singing the words, “Squeeze me so tight that I can’t breathe; let me live in your arms/breathe and don’t let me go.”
Um, honey, I got news for you – it sounds like he’s already got a hold of you. Maybe you should ask him to loosen his grip. And then ask Tropicana two questions: A. What the hell does that have to do with orange juice/breakfast/vitamin C? and B. Can we work on their advertising?
Lose my email
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
By Jillian Kule
Are people still sending email forwards? Really? Let me know when you get the one of the animated teddy bears doing an Irish jig. It’s a doozy. Actually, it’s not. It sucks and is a waste of time. Very much like 99% of forwards circulating out there.
I receive the majority of these crap-filled emails from girlfriends ranging from their mid-20s to early 40s. Come on, ladies, you should not be sending these around. This is something I expect from my mother. Or grandmother.
Here’s one I got today from a friend (please note: I did not make any proofing changes, as I like to embarrass people who send this crap):
Beautifully stated…..
As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn’t supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it’s harder every time. You’ll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You’ll fight with your best friend. You’ll blame a new love for things an old one did.
You’ll cry because time is passing too fast, and you’ll eventually lose someone you love…. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you’ve never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you’ll never get back.
Er, OK. I don’t really understand that, but I better send it to 10 people so I will have good luck for the rest of the year.
You may think you’ve outsmarted these chain letter-loving spreaders, but they’ll find you – now via text. The one I received today of a leprechaun mooning me with the words “Kiss my lucky charm” sprawled over his head was totally not worth the 25¢ I had to spend just to open it.
Don’tcha just hate it when?
Monday, March 9th, 2009
Adorable observations about advertising.
By Joe Sweeney
#3. Don’tcha just hate it when you don’t have a lot of time to do somethin’? I guess that’s why they call ‘em deadlines – cuz if you don’t write the lines in time, you’re dead!!!!!!!